When the Sky Burns
by Kuroi-cho-tsuki-shiro
Summary: It's 1940, the world is at war, and the death of two more will go unnoticed here, but there are other worlds than this. All Hisana wants is to go home. Not AU. Hisana and Rukia. Beginning of Hisana x Byakuya. 40.
1. Chapter 1

_**26th March 2012 update: SORRY! I am updating because my upload last week went very wrong and I had to rush this one from my work computer to get it on at all. The result was two embarrassing typos in the author's note (now corrected) and, my discovering that I'd managed to leave a reference to technology that did not even exist in the 1940s in one of the paragraphs. I'm not a historian, but that was quite bad! Anyway, here is the corrected version, although there's no need to reread if you've already read it. I'm putting chapter 2 up now.**_

_**Original Author's Note: I wanted to make this story feel familiar to readers, as if it could actually have happened in the Bleach-iverse. To do that, I've researched into what other people thought happened to Hisana and Rukia. We know they died together in a war, but that's about all. That said, there seemed to be a general agreement on the fan forums of which war, so I have gone along with them, even though the timing and Rukia's age don't totally make sense! Just... time moved differently in Soul Society, I guess.**_

_**Anyway, character 'death' and swearing probably deserve a warning here.**_

The baby was crying again.

Hisana pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her head, curling inwards, trying to block it out. It didn't stop. For a month now, on and on, it had wailed for the injustice of the world and for the parents it would never see again.

It was, Hisana thought, intent on driving her out of her fucking mind.

She was not a cruel person. At least, she had never considered herself so, but, right now, she was considering dashing its brains out just to make it quiet. They were both dead now, so, all in all, she thought, it might not even matter. She was a little hazy on morality in the afterlife. Unfortunately, she suspected, it might not be that simple. There were probably still rules to follow and laws to obey and, anyway, she was a good person. A kind person. Or so she had been while she'd lived.

It had been dusk, the air sweetly humid, the colour just starting to fade from the paddies where Hisana had been working, her _yukata _tucked up to her thighs, the baby in a sling across her back. The little girl loved the open air. Taking her to the fields meant that Hisana was giving her parents a break, which they both sorely deserved. Her little sister had been an unexpected arrival. Not unwanted. Not exactly. But there were twelve years difference between the two girls and Hisana's mother and father were too old to be bringing up a second daughter. Hence, today, the little girl had joined Hisana in the fields and she had been good as gold: silent, all throughout the heat of the day; engrossed in the clouds that had skimmed across the summer sky and the butterflies that flew up from the rice. Then, just when they had been about to leave, the sirens had sounded.

The war had always been a far away thing. Hisana and her family lived on the edge of the city, a city that was fat with politicians and power, so her father claimed, but they had no interest and took no part in a life that extended beyond the borders of Japan. What Hisana herself understood of the conflict had been gleaned from black and white pictures, but even they seemed distant and unreal. Glimpses into another world. All she knew for sure was that, when the sirens sounded, they had to get inside.

She started to to run as, all around her, the other labourers did the same, some falling into the water as their feet tangled in the crop. Many sprinted towards the road, but Hisana made for a path on the far side of the paddies. From there, she only needed to cross one field and they would be home.

A plane swept in low overhead, howling like a demon. She had heard the sirens before, but had never seen the planes, and she nearly stumbled as someone behind her screamed. To her left, she caught a glimpse of something falling from the aircraft. And then the sky exploded.

She had reached the edge of the paddy. The force of the detonation, even at such a distance, threw her forwards, into the bank of grass. The air was suddenly full of smoke. She choked, and, in the midst of it all, the baby started crying. Crying and coughing. The little sister she was meant to be protecting.

She knew she had to get up. Her body felt weak from the impact, but she wasn't in pain. Just shaken. And her head was ringing. And she had to get up, get back.

She crawled up the bank. The grasses were sharp. It was hard for her to catch her breath in the smoke, which had turned the air pitch dark. Surely there had been a path here, to the right. But, she realised, it would lead her back around the field, closer to the point where the bomb had exploded. If she turned left, she would have further to run: the full length of the paddy to reach the road, and then a longer journey home still. She stood up, starting to walk along the bank with no firm decision in mind, the baby screaming and screaming.

Another plane tore up the sky overhead. Hisana broke into a run again. Another came and another, their engines keening. Bombs began to fall on the city to the east. They lit the sky like sheet lightning, streamers of fire lacing through the clouds. Their targets were the government buildings. Yet, over to her left, one aircraft swept low over the paddy, fire blossoming in one wing. It dropped a line of explosives into the black water, sowing its own crop amongst theirs. As it howled over her head, it seemed close enough to touch.

She had stopped running though. She had turned towards the rice field. The time between two heartbeats seemed to last forever.

The earth erupted. It filled the sky. A sheet of fire chased across the shallow water.

The girl felt her body lifted.


	2. Chapter 2

In everything, there was motion: shards of the landscape spinning like pieces of a broken mirror. Some tore through her. Other caught, like barbs, in her skin, and raked her apart. When she fell, there was nothing of her left. Only pain. And awareness.

Awareness of falling, and of the world falling with her. Then she was lying face down, half-buried in the mud under the damp heat of her own blood.

The baby was crying.

She knew that was impossible. She sat up and tugged the sling from her back, then pulled the warm, screaming bundle to her chest. It squirmed and kicked. It balled up its tiny pink fists and pounded at her hands, but its every movement was like a salve to her. She sat there a long time, in the mud and the smoke, just rocking the baby. Nothing she could do would make it quiet, but, for now, she didn't mind.

The smoke around her paled, a grey dusk seeping into the landscape. It was late and her parents would worry.

She got to her feet and began to walk through the ruined fields. She had lost her sandals and was barefoot now. Far away, she could still hear the bombs striking the city.

Once she reached a path she knew, she broke into a trot. She had been lucky: the injuries she'd sustained were just superficial, it seemed, and, by the way the baby she carried was bawling, she guessed that it too had escaped relatively unscathed. She felt a surge of delight and relief. They were alive, and it had never felt better.

The landscape around her looked bleached, the colours altered from the ripe hues of the morning. Perhaps it was the smoke playing tricks on her eyes. Her head was still ringing and she wanted to be home, to be curled up in her own bed, to have returned the screaming child to its mother's arms, to be told that they were pleased she was safe and alive and well.

Ahead of her, on the path, a man was standing.

Waiting.

She hesitated. There was something wrong: the washed out landscape; the faded grey sky. Only the figure on the path seemed real to her and yet he was the strangest thing of all, dressed in a black kimono and _hakama, _with a white cloak across his back; he looked four hundred years out of place: a samurai from a storybook.

He was leaning back, watching the plumes of smoke on the horizon, and the trails the planes had left in their wake. As Hisana approached though, he turned towards her and smiled:

"There you are. I didn't expect you to leave so soon."

"Who are you?"

"My name's Shunsui. What's yours?"

"Hisana," she said with a scowl, and took a step backwards, holding the baby tight against her chest.

"Don't be scared," he said.

"Are you a ghost?"

"Something like that."

She took another step back:

"Don't come near me!"

"Where are you going, Hisana?"

"Home! I'm going home!" But, as she spoke, his features grew sad. He shook his head:

"You can't go home. Look down." She did. She saw the baby, still crying in her arms: "No. Not the child. Look at yourself. At the point above your heart." She lifted the baby and looked. There, stretching from the very centre of her chest, was a chain. It was black with dirt and blood and only hung down as far as her waist; from that point on, the links were broken.

"What is that?"

"While you lived, it connected your soul to your body."

"I don't understand."

"It's broken, Hisana."

"But I'm not dead!"

"How do you know that?"

"Because I'm here! I'm right here!"

"But your body was blown to pieces in the rice field just a minute's walk from here," he said matter-of-factly, pointing back the way she'd come. And, when she didn't answer, he approached, took her shoulder and gently turned her around. A wall of smoke was blackening the horizon: "I don't know why they did it, but they killed perhaps twenty people back there."

"But I'm breathing. Now," she murmured.

"Yes." His fingers tightened on her shoulder: "And you feel my touch, don't you? It's because your spiritual body is really no different from your human one, except that you are breathing _reishi _now. Spirit. Not air. And, from this moment on, you will feel neither hunger nor thirst." She couldn't answer him. The truth was in her heart, and he was more real to her than the sky, the grass, and the smoke trails overhead. "How old are you, Hisana?" he asked.

"I'll be thirteen next month."

"Why did they do this? Do you know?"

She looked up at him. He seemed sad. A little coldly, she said:

"Do you just wait here for people to die then? And then you tell them this?"

"Huh? No!" His expression of surprise was replaced by a grin as he looked down at her: "You think I should have something better to do with my afterlife?"

"I don't know! I don't know who you are!"

"Shunsui Kyoraku. I'm a soul-reaper." She stiffened and his grip on her tightened. She realised he had no intention of letting her go. "That doesn't mean I take lives," he explained: "My work is in guiding spirits to the next world."

"Then why are you wearing a sword."

"I'll show you." Slowly, and so as not to alarm her, he unsheathed the blade and turned it about so that the hilt faced her. With his left hand, he pulled back the blankets that swaddled the child in Hisana's arms: "This is your little sister? She's a very pretty child." For the first time since the bombs had started falling, the little girl was silent. Her round blue eyes stared up at the soul-reaper. Very gently, Kyoraku touched the hilt of his sword to the baby's forehead. A mark appeared there. 'Death, life,' it read, like a tattoo on the child's brow, and it glowed with pale blue light. Hisana felt the weight in her arms dissolving. On some instinctive level, she understood, but, as the baby's form dispersed, turning into light itself, she cried out:

"What did you do to her?"

"You know, don't you?" Shunsui knelt down so that his face was level with hers. It was a kind face. Too kind. She wanted to scream and claw at him, tell him that this was unfair. Completely absurd! She started to tremble. There were tears on her cheeks. "Do you want to go after her?" he asked.

"My parents will be angry."

"Well, that's just how parents are." As he spoke, he touched the hilt of his sword to her forehead. A jagged sensation ran through her. Lights bursting inside her body. Blue-white lights that surrounded her and separated her. "Don't be afraid," she heard Shunsui say: "You're one of the lucky ones. People rarely die together, in the same instant, but you two, because you did, will be allowed to stay together in the next life. You and her; you won't ever have to be alone."


	3. Chapter 3

**To Shadewolf7, Truantpony, ForbiddenME, Pinky357, Immortal Vows, Chellythemadhatter, Insomniatic95, Sallythedestroyerofworlds23, UNTensaZangetsu, XDark FangsX, Superlynx, Ichigoforeverlove, Ennaalemap, Makaykay15, Kaze05, Splash into Forever, War90, Yellowwomanonthebrink, Bakane, Night Flower, Hallmarktrinity, Tiffany Park, Snowcrystals, Neristhaed, Splitheart1120, VanillaTwilight4, Nightfur, Happykiller93, Haildance, Ani-mimi, Mysticalphoenix-avalon, Jennyrdr, Goranr and Firebirdever.**

**And everyone else who is faving, reading and reviewing. THANK YOU!**

**This story is going to continue in another called LEFT BEHIND, which I'm uploading now, but please read on!**


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